If you’re smart, you’ll learn something new from every job. And given that you’ll switch, not just jobs, but careers several times over your life, your unique advantage comes from the wisdom you pick up along the way.
If you worked in customer service, you’ll know how to handle clients when you go into business for yourself.
If you used to work as a reporter, you’ll have a nose for asking the right questions when you start law school.
And if you’ve ever douched your own nasal passages on national TV, you’ll know how to, quite literally, go with the flow.
(True story. More on that in a minute.)
For years I served as a magazine editor at Martha Stewart—and part of my job was doing regular TV segments on hers and other daytime shows. I also hosted my own daily radio show on Sirius XM for years.
Media, I’ve found, is a pretty powerful crucible for learning how to think on your feet when it matters most.
And should you decide to pursue media as part of your career (say as a contributing expert or guest, or perhaps even as an editor or producer), here are some key insights that will serve you on the air—and everywhere else.
Lesson #1: Keep it moving
In TV, you have maybe 3 to 5 minutes tops, so you have to make the best of every single one of them—especially on live TV. There is no editing, and there’s no time to hit the brakes if things go awry.
One time on Martha’s show, I was demonstrating a series of meditation apps. They worked fine during rehearsal. But when we went live? No dice. There we were, and for two long seconds the balloons that were supposed to dance across the screen, didn’t.
Martha started asking, “Why isn’t it working,” and rather than dwell on it, I waved it off (“Who knows?”) and kept things going. I said, “Well, what you would have seen, had it worked, was…” and spent a second or two explaining it, rendering the actual demo unnecessary.
In Real Life (IRL): Don’t dwell on it. Doesn’t matter if your powerpoint slides wouldn’t advance, or why three people canceled on your meeting. We waste far too much time looking backwards, trying to edit the past.
Obviously, understand a problem well enough so that you don’t let it happen again. But there are some times when inexplainable blips occur and at some point, it isn’t worth revisiting.
Instead, think like a host who is on to the following segment: “Next up! Let’s find out how to juice kale at home!” It doesn’t matter why the world didn’t going your way. Just. Keep. Going.
Lesson #2: Make an impression
The people who do well as on-air contributors are not only clear communicators—they aren’t afraid to stake their claim.
The people I booked as experts on my radio show were those who brought their ideas and opinions to the table, not the ones who played it safe all the time.
IRL: The more you waffle and hesitate, the less impressive and less interesting you become. The people who stand out and get tapped for bigger opportunities are the ones who aren’t afraid to own up to what they really think, and stand by it.
Lesson #3: Be game for anything
There’s no room on TV to do anything less than 100 percent. Even if you’re nervous. Better to see it through than fail halfway.
I was about to step onto the set of Martha to discuss a series of natural flu remedies, including the neti pot, an ages-old practice of flushing the nasal passages with warm saline water.
The plan changed five minutes before I went on the air, when the producer said, “Martha wants you to demo the neti pot.”
Um, what?
“Get me a towel and a bowl,” I said. And I walked on stage and douched my nose on national television. It was messy and, yes, I was dying a little inside as I did it. But you can’t fake a neti pot demo. You have to go all in.
(You can watch that clip here—at the 1:50 mark)
The audience laughed, Martha clapped, and a clip of it ended up on some online video called “WTF is going on with daytime TV?”
That was a win.
IRL: Commit. You’ll get real props for trying something, whether it works out or not—especially if you fully commit to doing it.
Realize that you don’t actually learn much from doing things right. You learn from doing it period. Win or lose, the effort teaches you so much more, not only about what you have done—but, more importantly, what you can do.
Want to learn more about how to be a go-to media expert? Register for the FREE online training I’m giving with seasoned TV producer Paula Rizzo, “5 (Little-Known) Ways to Snag Media Attention…That Even PR Pros Get Wrong” on March 13th or 14th.
